The 83rd Annual Golden Globe Awards are happening in January, and the nominees were just announced. Fan favorites in film and television are being recognized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, but there’s a new category that’s quite baffling: The Golden Globes have added “Best Podcast” to their roster.
A new Best Podcast category
The new addition to the Globes is an odd choice for a number of reasons. First, the Golden Globes do not typically honor unscripted work in film and television, so jumping right into podcasts feels wrong.
In 1977, the Globes retired their Best Documentary category. Imagine wanting to award “excellence in film and television” only to snub documentaries and give prizes to famous people with microphones.
Unlike the Emmys, the Globes don’t have categories for reality programming, talk shows, or variety series. That means Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, and John Oliver all go unnoticed while people like Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro are now making the Globes shortlist.
What podcasts were nominated for the Golden Globe?
The list of the Golden Globe nominees for Best Podcast is as follows:
- Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard (Wondery)
- Call Her Daddy (SiriusXM)
- Good Hang With Amy Poehler (Spotify)
- The Mel Robbins Podcast (SiriusXM)
- Smartless (SiriusXM)
- Up First (NPR)
For the record, there’s no denying that the above podcasts are good or popular, but they have no business being nominated for a Golden Globe. It would make way more sense for the Grammys, which already acknowledges audiobooks.
It’s worth noting that the Golden Globes are now run by Penske Media Eldridge, and that the shortlist for the podcast nominees was selected by the audio analytics company Luminate, which is owned by Penske Media. Penske also owns some of the biggest trade sites, including Variety.
Ultimately, the added category feels like nothing more than a money grab. Here’s a telling breakdown from The Ankler:
“An eligible podcast can pay $25,000 to become a Podcasting FYC Fest supporting partner, which gets the pod a spot on a Variety-moderated panel, the full kit-and-caboodle of Variety coverage and social posts, and a full-page color ad in the Variety FYC Fest Preview … A $35,000 tier adds the opportunity for a ‘custom 15-minute Variety-moderated conversation.’ And for $75,000, the podcaster will be awarded the Variety Creative Impact Award in Podcasting, which comes with a feature in the magazine and online as well as an onstage award handoff during FYC Fest.”
The Internet reacts to the new podcast category
Unsurprisingly, people aren’t happy with the new podcast category at the Golden Globes.
On Reddit, users debated the “coolness” of the nominees. “It doesn’t belong,” said u/inksmudgedhands, adding, “This category feels so much like, ‘Hey, look at us, we’re cool. We are part of the Cool Kids Table, right kids?’ category.”
“It’s also funny because the top ten or twenty popular podcasts are almost exclusively right-wing grifter stuff, so this is basically the ‘most popular liberal podcast’ award,” wrote u/isitdonethen.
On X, Gianmarco Soresi called the category “Insanely broad.”
You can check out some of the reactions below:
What about docs?
Shots fired.
One user is thankful the conservatives were left out.
They’re not wrong.
“Peak normie.”
Tell ’em, Logan.
The people have spoken.
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